1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to image browsing and, more particularly, to a thumbnail image browsing method in an embedded system.
2. Background of the Related Art
Generally, an image viewer or file browser in a personal computer (PC) has a function for displaying an image file (original image) as a smaller sized image (thumbnail). Such a function is called a thumbnail image browsing feature.
Once a user executes the thumbnail image browsing feature on a web page or client system, an image viewer (or file browser) decodes a compressed image so as to generate an original image. The image viewer then generates a thumbnail image from the original image so as to display the thumbnail image on the screen.
The above described thumbnail image browsing feature can be executed in a PC having a large screen, a relatively powerful CPU, and plenty of resources (e.g., memory, etc.) with ease. However, an embedded system having limited resources, such as a mobile communication terminal, has the following problems or disadvantages.
First, a thumbnail image browsing feature of the related art generates the original image by decoding a compressed image, and then generates the thumbnail image from the original image. Decompression and regeneration of the image are both resource and time consuming processes. A user can visually sense the generation speed of a thumbnail image on a screen, even in a PC. When a plurality of images is generated, the generation speed of the thumbnail image decreases due to the over-utilization of resources required for the purpose of performing the image browsing function. Since a mobile communication terminal has very limited resources, the thumbnail image browsing method according to the related art fails when applied to the mobile communication terminal.
Furthermore, in the method of the related art, thumbnail images are generated in predetermined fixed sizes, so that original images with various sizes are generated as thumbnails that are of same fixed size. Referring to FIG. 1, the height to width ratio of a thumbnail generated by the method of the related art is incongruent to that of the original image in cases where the dimensional properties of the original image differ from the thumbnail's predetermined fixed dimensions. Particularly, when the disproportion between the original and the thumbnail image dimensions is large, the thumbnail image fails to be an accurate, or even at times an approximate representation of the original image. This misrepresentation occurs because the thumbnail image is modified disproportionately in one dimension in order to force an exact fit into the predetermined fixed size.
In some cases, instead of modifying the image to fit the fixed thumbnail dimensions, the thumbnail image proportionally is similar to the original image, but the border areas of the image are filled to fully cover the areas within the predetermined fixed size of the thumbnail. Such irregular thumbnail images occupy valuable display space on an embedded system. A method and system is needed that can facilitate a more efficient and presentable image browsing feature in embedded system, such as a mobile communication terminal.